Andre de Ruyter, Eskom’s CEO, has said South Africans can look forward to an ease in load shedding over the coming days. He attributes the good news to the restoration of multiple generation units expected to start producing power again over the next ten days.
Still, we should be limiting our expectations where we can. This is Eskom we’re talking about. The moment the first speckles of rain hit the ground we’ll be writing headlines like “Eskom confirms stage 6 load shedding due to wet coal.” Please Eskom, don’t make us do that.
Stage 4 load shedding until further notice
After Tuesday’s failures at the Kendal and Lethabo power stations, Eskom has limited power rationing to 4,000MW until further notice. “We are doing everything possible to add megawatts to the grid,” De Ruyter told Radio Sonder Grense. “We have started buying power from Zambia, and we are looking at Mozambique and the private sector to add megawatts.”
Read More: Eskom is looking to hike tariffs by 32% on 1 April next year
De Ruyter went on to say that there are 6,000MW of renewable energy projects waiting to complete, which would provide Eskom with a huge boost in output. Unfortunately, he told us that we shouldn’t be expecting this power any time soon. A wait of at least 12 to 18 months is to be expected for projects this size.
Eskom failed to mention what this incoming easing of load shedding would actually look like. Will we have days of suspended load shedding? Are we dropping down to stage 3? That’s just something we’ll have to see for ourselves.
Source: Business Tech